[EricH]

Originally Posted by bdaroz

Ok, so I take it the number of "regularly-staffed ref positions" is the same between 2015 and 2016 (and my take away from your entire post is that it may have been the same even longer). The fact there is an "extra" ref to allow for breaks who can be pulled in for eliminations is a possibly recent addition that doesn't affect qualifications.

Read my post again. In 2015, and 2014 Week 1, there were 5 refs on the field. One extra was on staff, for a full crew of 6 refs, and during playoffs there could be 6 on the field depending on the head ref. (2014 kept ramping up the ref count, though--went to 6 on-field later in the season, I was on a crew with 8 on-field at one point; CMP had 10 or so I hear.)

This year, there are 6 refs on field with one ref sitting out (ideally). There is an increase.

The point I'm inclined to make is that the issue of missed calls (as opposed to flat-out errors) clearly has a "difficulty of game" component to it. Perhaps not a 1:1 correlation, but a strong causation nonetheless. Taking this further, these kinds of situations are, I'd argue to a large degree, a result of the GDC game design, either in referee difficulty, or in failing to allocate more resources (refs/video) to compensate.

That's a possibility. Or it's a case of the refs having eyes away from the area of the missed call for some reason. As far as game design... There's one aspect of the game that SOMEBODY made a trivial mistake on that really makes life difficult for the refs; what that is is left as an exercise for the game viewer (with a hint to look at the defenses on the left side of your screen when you're watching the webcasts).